


Twenty Twenty

by Grimmy88



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Blindness, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmy88/pseuds/Grimmy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A request from Deviantart.</p><p>Prompt: All of the survivors are together and during a raid Ellis gets hit with spitter goo and it hits him in the eye and he goes blind, Nick is assigned to help him and he's pissed but he also takes survival seriously so he looks out for him.</p><p> </p><p>Slight Nellis, maybe some angst (though I didn't feel any while writing it so I hope it's not too much!).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Twenty

            There were the screeches and screams all around them; the new soundtrack of their lives apparently. Nick could pick out any of those voices and tell you if you wanted to start kissing your ass goodbye or not. Any of his teammates could. It just depended on who heard what first.

            It seemed to be his turn that moment and he yelled out about the Spitter’s eardrum-grating alarm. Time to check toes.

            He was busy prying his ax from infected skull when he heard the bitch hock her loogie. He didn’t feel his feet burning instantly, though.

            Instead he heard a new, pained yell—one that before now had not been a reoccurring theme in the ebbing din accompanying their adventures. It was Ellis and he was screaming louder than the conman had ever heard from him both in genuine pain and panicked induced fear.

            He was on his knees at Rochelle’s side, face buried in his hands.

            When there was a lull Nick joined them with Coach barely a moment behind.

            Rochelle dropped down. “Oh, Jesus! I think some of the goo hit him in the eyes!”

            Ellis’ sounds had degenerated into tapered panting as if to match the way his entire body quivered.

            Then Virgil’s horn blared over everything else. It was echoed back as a chorus of screams.

            “Pick him up,” Coach gave the order to Nick. He faced back towards the front of the restaurant with his shotgun in one hand and Ellis’ dropped M16 in the other.

            “ _You_ pick him up,” Nick snapped. “You’re bigger than me. You carry and _I’ll_ cover our asses.”

            “Nick!” Rochelle reprimanded.

            The northerner didn’t waste more time arguing. He hefted Ellis up against him quickly, even if he was no less pissed. It was annoying mainly because, yeah, Nick had a good build keeping him going but the kid was purely toned muscle. It was going to get hard real fast and Nick was already fucking tired.

            He’d give the kid credit later for keeping his legs going, though. He only tripped very slightly as they got to the docks but still his feet found footing fast enough.

            “Keep stepping in front of you,” Nick demanded, “and keep hold of me if you don’t wanna go for a swim.”

            Ellis gave no cheeky retort but his hands tightened and his feet became more sure as if he were now certain of his trust in Nick. Which was pretty mushy, but whatever.

            They were about to descend the steps to cross the planks that extended over the bank and water below when something wrapped around Nick’s ankle. Not that he didn’t know what that something was but that didn’t really matter when he was going down. He did it with a shout but somehow managed to release Ellis in time so he wouldn’t eat wood as well.

            The kid fell anyway, though luckily forward because of his own momentum.

            Nick had managed to get his arms in front of his face so he didn’t head butt the dock, either. It gave him the ability to flail for a grip when there was a backwards jerk of his leg. He was dragged, clothes snagging and rising, before he snagged his hands on one of the stairs up which he’d been pulled.

            He must’ve blurted some kind of sound because Ellis was on his hands and knees, hands sliding along the dock until he was touching Nick. He made quick work of travelling down and finding the tongue cutting off all circulation to his foot.

            He cut it away with one swipe of his Bowie knife.

            Nick felt the appendage slide away after he had risen, arm around Ellis on their sprint to the boat. The mechanic collapsed down the moment they touched the boat’s deck. Nick focused on shooting backwards, covering their following team members.

            There was one hell of a Tank following them, too. One of the concrete slabs he threw missed Rochelle to plunge into the water. At that surprise Virgil began moving from the shore. Their female member only made it because Coach yanked her across the expanse between them.

            She laughed, though.

            “Holy shit,” Nick announced.

            She smiled at him but it was lost when she looked to Ellis. She kneeled next to him and Nick joined her.

            The kid’s hat was useless so they removed it. His face didn’t look as disfigured as one would expect from Spitter acid. It looked like it had hid right under the brow—he wasn’t missing any hair there—to hit lower. The skin beneath his eyes was red, puffed, and genuinely angry-looking, but it was still there. He’d probably missed the full brunt of the attack through sheer luck.

            One eye was worse than the other. That was probably because the kid had tried to rub what he could which had only served to work the stuff deeper. Both were red but one still had the blue, now shockingly so with the blood-colored background, while the other looked as though a film had settled over it.

            “What can you see, Ellis?”

            “…Juss’ blurs an’ outlines.”

            Rochelle frowned to Nick.

            Fuck. This was gonna be a royal treat.

            Coach rejoined them then, first aid kit in hand. He passed it to the reporter. “Virgil says use whatever we need. We’re on our way to N’Orleans.”

            Rochelle fumbled through the kit, larger and more fully stocked than the ones on her and Coach’s backs. About two more unsure seconds passed before Nick practically shoved her aside. Being female didn’t mean she had to play nurse, especially when she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing.

            There was eye wash, exactly what Nick wanted. What he didn’t want was to look at the discolored eyes and aggravated skin. It wasn’t a good look on a normally good-looking face. He wasn’t going to let the cleaning and bandaging get screwed over because of that, though.

            “I’m gonna tilt your head,” he told their youngest member, “and rinse out your eys. Just move with my hand.” He put his fingers to the cleft chin.

            Ellis moved with him when prompted. His adam’s apple bobbed.

            “Try to keep your eyes open.”

            Nick squeezed the bottle, aiming the flow from the inner corner of his right eye to the outer and then followed suit with the left eye. Ellis blinked rapidly when his head was righted and then shut them completely when Nick moved to dab the wetness with some gauze.

            He gave the kid a moment as he assessed the case of items. There were alcohol wipes, packets of ointment, gauze, and medical tape. He’d have to make do but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

            “…I need to use alcohol wipes,” he informed Ellis.

            “Juss’ get it over with.” His voice was raw, dejected.

            It pissed Nick off for some reason so he slathered the wipes on without warning. The southerner hissed and gave a jerk back but Nick just gave him a jerk forward. He finished as quickly as he could and gave the wounds a few seconds before dabbing on the ointment. There would be scarring, and it sure as hell wasn’t pretty right now, but at least he wouldn’t be deformed.

            When Nick was finished taping gauze to his head, covering one eye but engineered to let the other, normal-colored one breathe, Ellis sank back against the side of the boat. His lips were sunk into the deepest and longest frown he’d seen yet on the mechanic and they were in the fucking apocalypse.

            Nick was getting obnoxiously pissed again so he let Rochelle and Coach handle the consoling. It wasn’t until a good time later, when the two had gone to speak to Virgil, leaving Nick and Ellis alone, that he even glanced in his direction.

            His stupid shoulders were just as low as his stupid head.

            “So that it?” the conman asked. “You’re done?”

            Ellis didn’t lift his head. “I’m not dead.”

            “But you’re going to be pissy and get yourself killed because of it when we get to New Orleans.”

            “…I’m juss’ gonna slow y’all down anyway.”

            “We come this far and that’s it,” Nick snarled. “You’re going to see out of that one eye eventually but you’d rather give up to be some martyr?”

            “I ain’t bein’ a martyr; I don’t want anybody’ta get hurt ‘cause’a me.”

            “We’re not going to be hurt. We’re better than that, you little shit.”

            Here Ellis actually laughed though Nick meant the words.

            “How’m I gonna shoot, Nick?”

            “You don’t have to, we’ll be quiet.”

            “Bein’ quiet hasn’t really worked out fer us.”

            “You’ll hang onto one of us and it’ll work; you can see shapes so we’ll tell you where to aim.”

            The kid lifted his head. He was smiling. “Awright. Y’gotta let me go if I think I’m getting’ in the way, though.”

            “Fuck off.”

 

            After Virgil’s send off Ellis reached for Nick’s sleeve. Nick let him have it; he was going to be the only one competent enough to handle him anyway.

            He put his submachine gun in Ellis’ free hand and armed himself with the M16. Then they proceeded into the city.

            For a good amount of time they managed to keep as quiet as Nick had hoped. The previous masses of healthy people had obviously attracted the mass of infected to certain areas much prior to their arrival. There were stragglers—maybe longer deaths—but it made it easier to use their silent weapons. Rochelle enjoyed her sword for its reach, relative light weight, and ease of use. Coach had taken the ax and Nick was pretty good with his machete.

            When they did need to use their guns the crowds were barely that and dispatched with ease, as well.

            Unfortunately their luck ran out when they found the overrun evacuation center. They’d managed to sneak by a face-in-hands witch to lock themselves in a CEDA trailer. That was all find and dandy until Nick read the fine print on the wall.

            They were about to set off an alarm and when were alarms quiet?

            Three of them checked their firearms. Ellis had yet to fire his and he bowed his head seemingly to acknowledge this. Nick flicked his hat to get his attention. “Doing good so far.”

            “Yeah.”

            “You and me are gonna go fist that way you can shoot ahead without worrying about hitting Coach’s ass.”

            “Watch it, Nick.”

            Ellis smiled though and got his gun ready. “Make sure yer by my side, too, don’t wanna hitchya, either.”

            “Firstly, you’d better not be implying that I’m fat. Secondly, worry about the front, I’ve got our sides.”

            Once agreed the northerner threw the door open so that they could rush through the fences before their enemies could descend. He and Ellis made it to the first turn, because apparently it had been somebody’s bright idea to turn it into a fucking maze, only to be met face first by a decently-sized group charging for them.

            The kid didn’t even ask, though, he just began his fire and Nick kept up, hope renewed for his eyesight. It was easy to mow down the group; it wasn’t so easy for Ellis to see the Hunter they all heard. It didn’t matter much though because Nick knocked it right out of the fucking air with the butt of his gun. He used its stunned moments to cleave its head in with his machete.

            Eventually they reached a ladder which Ellis clambered up when urged. Nick followed, literally, on his heels, his own kicking away their attackers.

            The mechanic stopped suddenly and Nick’s head almost went up his ass. He was about to yell about the pause but shut his mouth when a Charger went sailing through the air to land with a heavy thud onto a pile of infected.

            Ellis continued up.

            Their new vantage point made it easier to clear their enemies, even more so when Rochelle and then Coach’s shotgun joined them.

            “Anybody hurt?” their leader asked after the last bullet had been fired.

            Nobody confirmed but they all looked to Ellis. He was smiling.

            “I think my ears’re goin’ super—I heard that Charger comin’ a mile away.”

            “Yeah, it’s not like they all scream before they attack,” Nick teased. He had to agree that the kid had been smart to automatically readapt his sense so his ears could guide him. Nick hadn’t been able to hear the Charger over all the other distorted voices, no matter what he joked.

 

            It wasn’t as quiet after that but they’d faced harder. The kid was getting easier to watch because he was finding it easier to trust himself and most importantly those ears.

            Unfortunately everything seemed to continuously come down to luck. For example, having to haul their youngest member’s ass through a car impound lot which seemed to have a ridiculous amount of orange-flashing alarms.

            He held heavily onto Nick which worked in their favor. He watched the kid’s legs closely as they slipped by the final car so that their bagginess did not catch. However this occupied his eyes and he failed to see, and then get the shot off, as a Jockey bounded onto and then off that car in an instant.

            Ellis and the car screamed simultaneously. Nick bounded after the stumbling and scraping duo. He didn’t shout but landed a quick slice across the mutant’s back, enough to get it to relinquish its hold.

            Nick whirled and sliced like some fucking action star and even managed a few shots from his handgun all whilst getting little directory shoves at Ellis’ back. He eventually got him to scamper up the ladder before them. Because he moved so quickly the following three were able to follow with little difficulty.

            From that vantage point it was easy to wipe out their enemies. Ellis didn’t need to see twenty/twenty to shoot straight down and Coach and Rochelle were fine with the few lunging down the steps they’d yet to climb. Really they proved to be more of an obstacle to climb over than to kill.

            There was an ambulance at the top, on that beautiful goddamn bridge towards which they’d been working. Here Coach and Ellis took a moment.

            The mechanic had a new red mark on his neck that would turn a nasty purple but a discolored neck was better than a wrung one. There was a light first-aid kit and a bottle of pills and little else. Nick let Rochelle hold the kit but shoved the pills in one of the hick’s oversized pockets.

            “Whoa, hey,” Ellis chirped, teasing smile ready so Nick knew he wasn’t gonna like this. “That ain’t fair’ta take advantage when I can’t even see ya comin’.”

            “Real clever, you little shit.” The conman was busy glaring back at him, not that it would’ve been seen, so he was completely caught off guard when their plan literally exploded in their faces in tandem with their precious bridge. The jets that had ruined everything continued on their route.

            “Ah, come on!” Nick screamed.

            “This isn’t happening,” Rochelle added.

            Their leader let the silence have only a moment. “The bridge broke down there, I think we can climb down.”

            Nick trailed the larger man to look over. It was a bit of a hop, not really a problem. The problem was the labyrinth-like cemetery into which they’d be walking.

            “You want me to run into that graveyard? What if it goes on for miles?”

            “You really should’ve done your research,” Rochelle piped up. “They’re big but they aren’t huge, especially this one. I thought you were working casino boats?”

            “Does ‘casino boats’ sound anything like ‘cemetery’?” Nick asked Ellis, touching his arm.

            The southerner smiled and Rochelle scoffed as she passed them. She allowed Coach to aid her down after which she took point. Nick slid down on his own, trying to be soft on his knees. Ellis followed and both men moved to guide his landing with hovering hands. They went unused because the kid as, well, a kid. Young and able to handle a drop, both eyes or only one, it seemed.

            He did let Nick help (by offering a literal shoulder at which the mechanic grabbed) lead him down the unstable chunks of concrete to the earth.

            Okay, so the graveyard wasn’t that big of a deal, they were right. There were stragglers standing about, staring at nothing, and others fighting. They encountered yet another Smoker but their arrival into the next save room went relatively uninhibited compared to previous experiences.

            They were given a break. Nick’s mind accepted that it would be the only one, but he was proved wrong by their passage with a Mardi Gras float.

                        It was a pain in the ass, of course. Nick had finally opted in shoving their team underneath the nearby apartment stairs. It gave them protection except from their front, but their guns handled that fine. It gave Ellis a piece of mind and security about his fire, too.

            So that was two, and there was no third lucky charm because eventually it all devolved into getting a practically blind redneck over a bridge streaming with infected.

            “Negative, bridge. Are you immune?” The soldier gave a grating pause between each word of his question. It made Nick grit his teeth.

            “We are not infected.” They wouldn’t be talking into the damn walkie-talkie if they were for fuck’s sake.

            “Are you equipped for carriers?” He wasn’t talking to Nick anymore so the conman cast a glance at his teammates over his shoulder. They echoed his shrug.

            The soldier was talking again and it was truly joyous information: the bridge was overrun and that EVAC would only be waiting for them on the other side.

            “We keep running,” Rochelle said. She was talking to Ellis.

            Coach meanwhile, pulled Nick to the side. “We’ll probably get through this and I don’t think I gotta say it…”

            “I know,” the northerner grit out. The more people that could get across the bridge, at whatever cost, the better. It was insinuated, it had been on their minds, even Ellis’, this entire time. But they’d gotten this far and this cost was too high even for Nick.

            Coach stepped away and spoke louder. “Don’t stop for anything but savin’ each other.”

            “If y’can,” Ellis murmured when the conman joined him.

            “Not another word,” Nick warned, pissed to the point his hands were shaking. “You can see me fine, you keep after me.”

            The kid’s dared more words anyway, almost drowned out by the sounds of the gears whirring now that the button to lower the bridge had been pressed. It was a good chance this was his intention so that only Nick could hear. “Leave me if y’gotta.”

            The northerner remained silent, hoping Ellis would shut up about it, which he did. He wasn’t going to need to leave him.

            Their path clattered down in front of them and Nick dragged Ellis forward, wanting the others to cover their backs while he took care of the front. Through the buses and cars in front of them only a minimal amount of infected weaved toward them. The average infected were easy; they found ways to come face on, tripping over cars and their own feet in their rage.

            It was when Hunter and Smoker screams filled their ears that Nick started to worry.  The Hunter was ahead, the Smoker behind. Nick took care of the jumper, filling him with half a clip and then shoving Ellis aside to let the body fall away from them.

            By the sounds of it the tongue had missed its target so maybe luck hadn’t left them completely.

            Ellis apparently saw the ladder leading to the top of the truck in front of him. He scaled it and shot ahead of himself semi-wildly, destroying the two infected who had been bee-lining towards him.

            Nick was right behind him and then switching places in order to literally catch the kid as he jumped down the front of the truck. There were flashes of pink and purple close behind so the conman took that as a sign that Coach and Rochelle were following close enough. He didn’t have time to check otherwise because there was a flood of infected before them and he was pretty insistent on keeping their movement.

            He and Ellis kept stride as they led. Ahead of them the upper tier of the bridge had collapsed, a theme for the day. It was at a scalable angle and at the top a pile of ammo awaited them. They had a moment for their two remaining teammates to join them before they reentered the fray.

            For a few moments there in the splattering blood and flying body parts Nick really thought they’d make it. He could see where the bridge was uneven, where they were almost at the home stretch. But three of their team could see the Tank waiting ahead of that last dash. The monster returned their stare.

            Nick made the choice to yank on Ellis’ arm and run like hell. While Coach and Rochelle opted for shooting his plan was to outrun the goddamn thing by ducking around two cars that had crashed into one another, melding and twisting into a demented new form. With luck the muscled asshole wouldn’t be able to chuck that as easily as one.

            They were going to test that luck because the Tank’s eyes were glued to their hand-clutched duo as they sprinted. It took a hard right, diverting its path to intercept them. It was distracted at the last moment by a spray of AK-47 firepower. It forced it into a misstep, a mere second, but it was enough for Nick to drag the kid right on by and towards the ladder up to their exit.

            He couldn’t help but laugh, even though he knew the shots had come from their trailing teammates. Even though he knew they were probably facing off with the thing while he continued to run.

            That panic, and then the panic ahead of him, a new mass of infected rallied by the screams of the Tank, filling and blocking their path to rescue.

            “We all together?!” Ellis shouted before opening fire into the group.

            Nick didn’t answer but joined in with his shooting.

            With some infected cleared he was okay with jumping down to the next landing with the mechanic, tossing a quick glance over his shoulder to see purple and pink once again. Behind them was a large mass of tan, but there was ample ground between. Only when he and Ellis were behind a sandbag barricade of uselessness did he stop them to get a full look.

            He was right; there was so much space between the two and their pursuer. He couldn’t help the hope that swelled in his chest with the intake of breath he took. His cynicism knew better. It had yet to steer him wrong.

            Nothing could stop it from being proven right, either, especially when that Tank ripped up a piece of concrete.

            It threw the chunk so hard that Nick knew Coach was dead the moment it collided with his back. He’d reflect back later on how that was better than dying in the following moment when his body became sandwiched between a stranded car and the debris. His back and head had already been unnaturally straightened with the blow to the back of his skull his demise but that collision severed his body almost in half.

            The front of the car speared right into his front. It looked as if his stomach exploded above and outward and at some point it stopped and the conman was almost nauseous when he realized it was because of his spine. The lifeless limbs flailed, useless and broken to rest on the car and on the ground and the concrete slab, and everything oozed red and pink.

            Nick envied that Ellis couldn’t see.

            Rochelle could and did. The moment seemed to halt everything, even her knowledge of how to run. Her feet lost their feet, her legs their balance, and she went down on hard on her hands. When she lifted her upper body up it was to only stare back in horror.

            The ground vibrating and shaking her form helped shake Nick from his own stupor.

            “Nick!” He hadn’t realized Ellis had been yelling.

            “Stay!” Reaching Rochelle was a blur. Her ankle was useless, he could see should wouldn’t be able to move fast enough or far enough in those goddamn stupid ass boots so he hefted her up. “Get your scrawny ass on my back!”

            It was all goddamn bullshit, running with a bony southerner on his back and another fully-muscled one clinging to his arm. Both impeded his running and both sure as hell stopped his shooting; that was left up to Ellis whose breathing had escalated so much that he was sure he’d have to carry three asses including his own once he fainted.

            Rochelle was quietly sobbing in his ear by the time they reached a too-long drop. He was forced to put her on the ground and go first. Somehow he managed to catch her, though he fell backwards with the weight, jacking up his own back. Ellis came next, managing to hang off the edge and land on his feet with the steadying of Nick’s hands.

            When they were reorganized into their clamping trio they began their pace again, the path to the helicopter clear from the soldiers. Before they could approach those men quickly disappeared back into the craft, however. Nick didn’t know why until the ground trembled behind them marking the descent of the Tank after them.

            He wanted to turn and kill it, hell, he’d even settle for it running into the helicopter blades as it chased after them but he knew neither of these were options. The fury he felt, the panic for his teammates should his legs fail them, he redirected into his focus on the open back of that aircraft.

            He focused so hard he didn’t realize he could put the two down until a soldier was prying Rochelle from his back.

            They didn’t shake as the helicopter rose. There was simply a roar beneath them.

            “Holy shit, Nick,” Ellis murmured, sitting at his side. Their hands were still clasped. “You got me through.”

            Nick found his arm around the strong shoulders, found their heads together.


End file.
